This is great, Stephen. As a media scholar (games scholar, specifically), I've been very curious how this business venture is going. I love the transparency, and (for some unknown reason) I'm pleased to know I'm one of only 1200 paid subscribers--I'm usually too cheap for this kind of stuff, I guess?
I love the small scale close connection with something like this or a podcast. But supporting 10 such operations gets expensive very quickly, and big news sites are really valuable, so I think the idea of expanding is a good one, although your cautious approach is wise, b/c business history is littered with hulking wrecks of organizations that expand too quickly.
I do wonder in the long run if alliances of like-minded newsletters eventually kind of organically coalesce into new subscriber-supported news organizations. I guess we'll see.
Thanks again for the valuable reporting and thanks for the transparency on how the project is going.
This sounds awesome, and I'd love an opportunity to join your new team! I'm a journalist with over 3 years of experience so far, and I specialize in all things gaming and the entertainment sphere. I've personally been playing games since my childhood in the 90s, so I've been around the block a few times and have a good understanding of how the industry's evolved over the past 20-30 years.
I'd be more than happy to share my resume and some of my published work via email or however you prefer!
No shade and I totally respect that it’s not exactly your specific beat, but I’d be willing to upgrade to paid if there was someone reporting on the dearth of real innovation in gameplay since Shadow Of Mordor/Nemesis.
To be clear, that’s mostly my biased opinion; while I respect that plenty of games have come out since then with various innovations, nothing feels genuinely groundbreaking anymore. It’s just remixes and reskins of this or that new trend or preexisting genres.
So yeah, again no shade, just saying that this is one of the 2-3 things that would snooker me into subscribing. I’d even be open to seeing a wide-ranging discussion on whether my idiosyncratic opinion is even valid. Just saying it’d be catnip and I couldn’t resist subscribing to a thoughtful dialog on the topic of whether the industry is caught in a creative doldrums.
Congratulations on the milestone! I'm excited to see where this leads for game file, although I always do worry about creators/journalist/podcasters I follow not leaving enough for themselves. If you haven't even gotten to your old paycheck, and you don't have standard business benefits from working at a large company, I would always prefer you are comfortable/stable financially before expanding out with freelancers too much. Again, super happy to have them, I just don't want a random broken AC unit or boiler or (god forbid) medical bill to hit you hard!
Wow @stephen, that is amazing. In 1999, I was paid $1 per word for a 300 word review in PC Gamer. After I submitted it, it was very much edited and I didn't see the edits until it was in print. That was before the 2000 crash that took most freelancers out or they would just accept a ton of $35 per article assignments. I just read Nicole's first article, and wow. Although Pokemon isn't my thing, the amount of investigating she did to get to the bottom of it was top notch journalism. Someone has to keep the gaming industry in check! Happy to support. I may not play a lot of PC Games these days (Atari 2600 FTW -- no tariffs), but I like to keep up with what's going on.
Love this idea, @Stephen! Also, would love the chat dynamic to evolve, if possible, to something that would make it more valuable to be a subscriber. I don't if that's a subscriber-only discord, or reddit-thread or WhatsApp group or something, but something along those lines would be cool.
Dear Stephen, I believe I have something that would be a good fit for Game File. Do you have any page or form that outlines the pitch process for a freelance post?
On the subject of things missing from this plan, does this mean you're actively looking for story pitches now? Sent to either your @gamefile.news or @protonmail address?
Either way, congrats on coming one step closer to figuring out the Kong family tree! 😂
I'm a tech journalist with 25+ years of experience, but only seriously got into gaming in January 2023. I'd be interested in writing about games if you want the perspective of someone who's not a long-time gamer. I have an Xbox and Steam Deck, and have pre-ordered at Switch 2.
Also, my specialty is the Apple ecosystem, so could write about games on the Mac, Apple Arcade, etc.
This is great, Stephen. As a media scholar (games scholar, specifically), I've been very curious how this business venture is going. I love the transparency, and (for some unknown reason) I'm pleased to know I'm one of only 1200 paid subscribers--I'm usually too cheap for this kind of stuff, I guess?
I love the small scale close connection with something like this or a podcast. But supporting 10 such operations gets expensive very quickly, and big news sites are really valuable, so I think the idea of expanding is a good one, although your cautious approach is wise, b/c business history is littered with hulking wrecks of organizations that expand too quickly.
I do wonder in the long run if alliances of like-minded newsletters eventually kind of organically coalesce into new subscriber-supported news organizations. I guess we'll see.
Thanks again for the valuable reporting and thanks for the transparency on how the project is going.
This sounds awesome, and I'd love an opportunity to join your new team! I'm a journalist with over 3 years of experience so far, and I specialize in all things gaming and the entertainment sphere. I've personally been playing games since my childhood in the 90s, so I've been around the block a few times and have a good understanding of how the industry's evolved over the past 20-30 years.
I'd be more than happy to share my resume and some of my published work via email or however you prefer!
No shade and I totally respect that it’s not exactly your specific beat, but I’d be willing to upgrade to paid if there was someone reporting on the dearth of real innovation in gameplay since Shadow Of Mordor/Nemesis.
To be clear, that’s mostly my biased opinion; while I respect that plenty of games have come out since then with various innovations, nothing feels genuinely groundbreaking anymore. It’s just remixes and reskins of this or that new trend or preexisting genres.
So yeah, again no shade, just saying that this is one of the 2-3 things that would snooker me into subscribing. I’d even be open to seeing a wide-ranging discussion on whether my idiosyncratic opinion is even valid. Just saying it’d be catnip and I couldn’t resist subscribing to a thoughtful dialog on the topic of whether the industry is caught in a creative doldrums.
Congratulations on the milestone! I'm excited to see where this leads for game file, although I always do worry about creators/journalist/podcasters I follow not leaving enough for themselves. If you haven't even gotten to your old paycheck, and you don't have standard business benefits from working at a large company, I would always prefer you are comfortable/stable financially before expanding out with freelancers too much. Again, super happy to have them, I just don't want a random broken AC unit or boiler or (god forbid) medical bill to hit you hard!
🙋🏻♂️
Thank you, Stephen, for championing thoughtful, independent games journalism—looking forward to what’s ahead. Let’s go!
Wow @stephen, that is amazing. In 1999, I was paid $1 per word for a 300 word review in PC Gamer. After I submitted it, it was very much edited and I didn't see the edits until it was in print. That was before the 2000 crash that took most freelancers out or they would just accept a ton of $35 per article assignments. I just read Nicole's first article, and wow. Although Pokemon isn't my thing, the amount of investigating she did to get to the bottom of it was top notch journalism. Someone has to keep the gaming industry in check! Happy to support. I may not play a lot of PC Games these days (Atari 2600 FTW -- no tariffs), but I like to keep up with what's going on.
Hey! Great idea! I'm HIGHLY interested in contributing to this site, from a writing standpoint. How do we get the ball rolling on that if possible?
Love this idea, @Stephen! Also, would love the chat dynamic to evolve, if possible, to something that would make it more valuable to be a subscriber. I don't if that's a subscriber-only discord, or reddit-thread or WhatsApp group or something, but something along those lines would be cool.
Also, looking forward to the new article(s)!
Dear Stephen, I believe I have something that would be a good fit for Game File. Do you have any page or form that outlines the pitch process for a freelance post?
So good Stephen. Congratulations 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
On the subject of things missing from this plan, does this mean you're actively looking for story pitches now? Sent to either your @gamefile.news or @protonmail address?
Either way, congrats on coming one step closer to figuring out the Kong family tree! 😂
I'm a tech journalist with 25+ years of experience, but only seriously got into gaming in January 2023. I'd be interested in writing about games if you want the perspective of someone who's not a long-time gamer. I have an Xbox and Steam Deck, and have pre-ordered at Switch 2.
Also, my specialty is the Apple ecosystem, so could write about games on the Mac, Apple Arcade, etc.
Love this and keen to know more
This sounds great! What kind of pitches are you looking for?
I love this!